


By Any Other Name

by Lyrstzha



Series: The Seer and the Champion [1]
Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Alternate Canon, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Slash, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-31
Updated: 2007-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:39:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrstzha/pseuds/Lyrstzha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Lindsey actually <i>hadn't</i> been lying about being drafted by The Powers That Be to serve as Spike's Seer?</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Any Other Name

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shapinglight](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Shapinglight).



"You can call me D..." The man skips like a scratched record, and blinks at Spike a little in the dimness of the strip club. "No. Okay, Lin...no."

Spike arches a sardonic eyebrow at him. "You a bit confused there, Sibyl? Need a name tag, maybe?"

The man shakes his head a little and frowns, but it seems turned inward, as if he's arguing with himself and not responding to Spike at all. Finally he sighs and dashes back the sandy hair sliding into his eyes with long fingers. "You know what? Just call me Mac."

And that's how it starts, how Spike gets a Seer to call his own, even though he never so much as thought about wanting one.

They fall into a routine surprisingly quickly. Tattoo-boy calls, and Spike complains a little, but swoops off to the rescue anyway. Then it's back to the Spartan little apartment, where he'll find Mac scrunched up against the outside of the door, doing that ostentatiously casual thing he does where he's clearly trying to lounge nonchalantly like someone crumpled him up and tossed him onto the dingy floor, and not like he's tense or anxious at all.

Ever since the first night, Spike knows Mac could just let himself in the front door again, but he never does. He waits until Spike comes sauntering up the hall, limbs loose with victory and relieved tension, and he tips his head back to look up and nod a greeting.

"All good?" he always asks.

And Spike might say, "No, I died tragically in an epic battle. There'll be a monument in the park. Maybe even an opera." Or possibly, "Absolutely, mate. I vanquished all evil everywhere. They don't even make polyester anymore." If he's especially exhausted, he might just roll his eyes and nod, though a day that's long enough to wring the last drops of sarcasm out of Spike is a pretty long day indeed.

Spike doesn't really mean to let Mac inside the apartment, especially not at first, but it happens anyway. First there's this talon lodged in his back that he can't reach by himself, and the next time he gets to bickering with Mac at the door and doesn't want to quit until he's ahead. It always seems to be something. And anyway, Mac usually brings imported beer.

For a little while, that's how things go. But then there's the whole mess with the crazy slayer, and Mac—without saying a word about it or bothering to _ask_ if Spike minds—starts tagging along for the fighting side of things, too. Spike gives him a hard time about it at first, but Mac turns out to be surprisingly handy in a scrape. Maybe even suspiciously so, because Spike doesn't figure that your run-of-the-mill drifter should know how to handle a sword like that.

He asks Mac about it, but Mac just blows out a sharp breath, a grey shadow of a laugh, and says that he's drifted through some dark places in his time. And probably Spike should be more suspicious after that, should keep on pushing. He's not quite sure why he doesn't.

It isn't that Spike likes Mac or anything. It's not that they're getting to be friends. Absolutely not. Spike's had enough of The Powers That Be jerking his chain around without so much as a by-your-leave, ta very much—he's no more pleased now that they've gone and handed the leash to their errand boy. It's just that Spike gets tired of playing Crash Bandicoot against the game; it's more fun to kick tattoo-boy's ass instead. That's all it is, really.

And if there's extra-strength aspirin in Spike's bathroom now, it doesn't mean anything. Spike's just got to keep his Seer up and working so they can carry on fighting the good fight. Spike learned that lesson well from Buffy, after all; it's important to keep the support troops strong. Spike's never been much good at making friends anyway—he never did manage to fit in with Buffy's Scoobies. Not that he'd really tried, mind. Or that it bothered him. He hasn't needed friends in ages, and even if he did, he wouldn't choose a pouty, cryptic, pushy, smart-arse psychic, that's for sure. Not for all the blood in China.

"Hey, I've been thinking," Mac remarks conversationally one night as they stand in front of Spike's temperamental refrigerator, opening beers and dripping strangely-colored fluids to puddle on the linoleum floor. Mac blearily wipes ichor, ash, and straggling locks of hair from his eyes.

Spike makes a show of sniffing the air in Mac's direction. "And here I thought that burning smell was just the demon."

Mac grins at him, but it's that kind of sharp-toothed wolf-grin he has sometimes that says _go ahead and laugh, I know where you sleep_. "Your whole leaping at the demon with a mighty battle-cry thing? Maybe not so stealthy as it could be."

"You insulting my manly yelling now, Beverly Hillbilly?"

Mac snorts at him. "Wouldn't dream of it." And his drawl goes longer and lazier, the way it always gets when he's being insulting. "I'm just sayin' it might be easier to take down eight-foot-tall, razor-clawed, armor-plated killing machines if we could sneak up and cut off their heads while they were still _asleep_, instead of you bouncing into the room like a jackrabbit on crack, hollerin' your head off and rilin' 'em up."

"Doesn't sound properly champion-like, doin' it that way. Don't think I'd feel all heroic after."

"You know what else doesn't feel heroic? Slime in my hair and teeth marks in my ass."

Spike runs his agile tongue behind his teeth and leers at Mac exaggeratedly. "No? That kinda thing always feels pretty heroic to me. You must be doin' it wrong."

Mac tosses his bottlecap to ping off of Spike's leather-clad shoulder with a soft _pat_, and tries to pretend he isn't swallowing a chuckle. "_Shut up_. You know what I mean." He pauses to look speculatively at Spike, his eyes narrowing around a thoughtful glint. "Or maybe you don't wanna do things differently than ol' Angel, is that it?"

Spike splutters on a sip of beer, coughing and glaring. "I'm not Angel," he snaps hotly. "Not _anything_ like. If you think—"

Mac holds a hand up, dipping his head in surrender. "Okay, okay. You're not Angel. You're your own vampire with a soul seeking redemption. Move along, there are no parallels to see here. Got it."

Spike thinks maybe there's some irritating traces of curl at the corners of Mac's mouth, but Mac drowns them in his beer. They drink quietly for a minute, Spike still glaring, Mac fidgeting with the bottle in his hands.

Mac half-turns away to lean hip-shot against the counter. His fingers worry at each other around the dark glass of the bottle, and Spike can't remember seeing him nervous like this since the first night they met. "Hey. Long as we're on Angel...there's somethin' I've been meanin' to tell you." He glaces up a little at Spike, sidelong.

Something in Spike's gut tightens, like he's smelled fresh blood. "Yeah? If it's about how you can see dead people, it won't be as funny as you might think."

Mac doesn't even snark back, which isn't right at all. He lets out his breath in a long sigh, his shoulders slumping with it as if he's deflating. "I never told you, but me an' Angel, we go back a bit."

Spike arches an eyebrow. "Let me guess. You had a torrid affair until he decided he couldn't be with anyone who uses more hair gel than he does."

That gets a weary chuckle from Mac, which makes the conversation feel closer to all right. "Okay, when I said I'd been through some dark times? I didn't mean _that_ dark. Now will you just shut up and let me tell you that I used to be evil?"

A laugh startles out of Spike's throat like a wild bird flushed suddenly from a bush. "And what, you want I should give you the club pin and teach you the secret ex-evil handshake? Maybe bake you a 'yay, you're not evil anymore' cake?"

Mac blinks at him, slow and blank. "I don't think you're gettin' this. I used to be Angel's arch-nemesis." He pauses, and half-shrugs. "Okay, _one_ of his arch-nemeses."

Spike waves a hand in a polite _yes, and?_ motion.

"It was an epic struggle," Mac insists, throwing his arms wide. His vehemence makes him slosh a little beer over his left hand. "The stuff of _prophecy_."

"Been there, done that." Spike smirks and shrugs at Mac. "Don't care what side that wanker's on, he _needs_ some arch-nemesising. What else you got?"

"He _really_ hates me." Mac drawls the 'really' out until it tumbles from his mouth all wide and country-curved. "I mean, _really_. His nostrils do that flaring thing every time I walk into the room. You know, that flappy thing, like they're gills or something."

Now _that_ gets Spike's attention, and he perks right up. "Yeah? He do that teeth-grinding thing, too?"

"Damn straight! Every time I talk to him. If he were human, his molars would've been sand by now." There's more than a tinge of pride there, lurking plainly in Mac's eyes and the set of his mouth.

Spike grins at him, wide and delighted and maybe a little proud of Mac, too. "That's _brilliant_. You should've said something earlier."

"So, you don't..." Mac looks a little thrown, and he's staring as though Spike is one of those 3-D pictures that might click into comprehensible focus any minute now. "I mean, we're okay." An uncertain curl of intonation leaves it hovering somewhere between question and statement.

"Okay? Why, Seer," Spike declares, "I do believe that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Which is only a quote, of course, and doesn't really mean a thing. If the words tumble off his tongue sounding a little more weighted with real feeling than Spike intended, well, that's just because it's been a long day. And anyway, he's got more important things to be going on with just now. "We should go see the Great Poof sometime. Together. Bet between us we could make his bloody head explode." His eyes get just a little misty, and he gives Mac a quick clap on the shoulder. Spike chalks it up to extenuating circumstances, because if making Angel crazy isn't an extenuating circumstance, he doesn't know what is.

Mac draws in a sharp, reverent breath. He snaps his fingers and points at Spike. "Now that right there? That's a damn fine plan. I take back everything I ever said about your plannin' skills." And he grins back at Spike, wide and open, easy and full of smart-arse snark again.

Not, Spike reminds himself, that that's comfortably familiar.

"You," he tells Mac, "wouldn't know planning if it left more teeth marks in your arse. Your trouble, Mac, is—" But he loses his sentence there, suddenly sidetracked. "Say. Your real name. It isn't Mac, is it?"

"Not exactly. It's Lindsey McDonald, actually." Mac—_no, Lindsey_—shrugs. "But my college roommate did used to call me Mac."

Spike nods slowly, as if he's mulling it over. He waits until Lindsey takes a sip of beer, and then says, all innocence and polite enquiry, "So, Lindsey. Bit of a girl's name, isn't it?"

But then he only pounds Lindsey's back because he can't very well let his Seer choke to death, now can he?


End file.
